Inside the New York Yankees clubhouse with MLB.com beat writer Bryan Hoch.

Moving along…

…quite slowly, since you asked.

Ian Kennedy just needed 27 minutes to get through the top of the first inning, and hopefully that doesn’t set the tone for the rest of this game. The Yankees’ first three games of the season have been pretty brisk affairs, with times of game of 2:31, 3:10 and 2:45. The Yankees always have consistently longer-than-league average games, so those numbers translate to playing with their cars double-parked by comparison.

Not that it matters much right now to Joe Girardi. Having been through what he’s battling right now, you could probably tell the skipper that Babe Ruth just walked into the clubhouse and he probably wouldn’t have much of a reaction. Girardi is resting on the couch in his office and spent most of the afternoon sleeping, as Rob Thomson gets his day behind the controls.

40 Comments

It’s so early in the season that I’m not overly worried, but I hope one thing does come from this. I know “the plan” is to have Hawkins/Farnsworth in the 7th, but if they continue to screw up and the other guys pitch well, I hope “New Joe” isn’t afraid to change the plan. Pamela said “But my heart is having flashbacks to last season” and I understand why. It’s only minor now, but if “New Joe” turns out to be like “Old Joe” in this manner I’ll be more than nervous.

Kyle Farnsworth was the BIG DISCUSSION in the off-season…99.9% agreed, Farnsworth should not be on this team !!! He should have been traded !!!…We all said: this year would be the same as last year, regarding Kyle Farnsworth….He is not a pitcher we can depend on IN ANY GAME…He was ineffective out of the bullpen in 2007, and there is no reason to believe he will effective this year!…and, is Hawkins going to be JUST LIKE FARNSWORTH?….Too, bad….because, Albaladejo, Ohlendorf, and Traber all pitched good tonight!!!….also, I look back to yesterday’s Awesome peformance by Kei Igawa [6 perfect innings] in his opening day (AAA) SWB start; and, great performances by Patterson, Ramirez, and Veras out of the SWB bullpen, to combine for the 4-0 win!…Just maybe, one or two of those pitchers should be up here in New York…If Farnsworth and Hawkins continue to not pitch well….hopefully, they will not be brought into games, again, and again, and again….We saw too much of that [last year], when Joe Torre continued to bring Farnsworth into: game , after game, after game, after game, etc….while we all watched how ineffective he was !!! It’s early in the season, but every game counts! The Yankees had a chance to come back and win this game [as the bullpen was doing a great job], until Hawkins and Farnsworth came into the game…Let’s hope we don’t see too many more of these kind of bad performances [by Hawkins and Farnsworth] out of the bullpen !!!

Lets also not start worrying about Kennedy, it’s all part of the growing pains every pitcher goes through. A bigger challenge for a pitcher is to be able to bounce back psychologically after this type of outing. That says a lot about any pitcher. Kenney will be fine.

Thanks for the minor league updates, but FYI all we have to do is click on the “Roster” tab on top and click on “Minor league affiliates” and it will give us the results of each affiliate, not as quickly as you do, but just some info to save you some time and effort in the future.

Hawkins, and Farnsworth were “roughed up a bit” is a bit of an understatement. Sure, everyone is prone to bad days, but this bullpen is lacking a long reliever, and is also lacking quality depth. Yes, Albaladejo,and Ohlendorf had good outings, but they are unproven, we still don’t know what to expect from them over the course of a full season. Farnsworth is Farnsworth, it doesn’t look like that has changed. Bruney has been nothing but inconsistent his entire career, and Traber hasn’t had much of a career to speak of at all, not to mention he is another unknown.

All good points, BD. My head tells me that you’re absolutely right. But my heart is having flashbacks to last season, and I’m feeling a little panicky tonight. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand the strategy behind pulling Albaladejo, Ohlendorf, and Traber after only 1 inning apiece when they each appeared to be in their respective grooves. I tend to agree with Matt re: needing a consistently effective long reliever.
I’ll feel better tomorrow, I’m sure.

Ian Kennedy is just facing one of those bumps in the road that most young pitchers go through; There is no need to panick, because we’ve all seen how great he can pitch when he has it all down mentally. He himself has said that he gets first inning butterflies, it’s just one of those things where experience ( like today’s ) is key in calming a player down. The worst has happened, now there’s only room for better things.

Kennedy allows 6 runs in the just 3 innings. There’s nothing more demoralizing for an offense than to look up at the scoreboard in the THIRD and be down by that much. Not making any excuses, but just giving you an insight to what a ballplayer feels in that situation ( unneeded pressure ). The bullpen did GREAT. Yeah sure, Farnsworth and Hawkins are roughed up a bit, but Albaladejo and Ohlendorf ( thank God for Randy Johnson ) were pretty good. All in all, this was one of those games where you just needed to put it all in the backburner and come back with a clean slate tomorrow. Bad days will happen, there are 160 games left. ( Take a look at Detroit… back-to-back-to-back bad days. )

You didn’t jinx it pam, but now you guys can see why Hawkins scares me, and why I haven’t jumped on the Farnsworth bandwagon. We also see why this team desperately needs a long reliever rather than using a bullpen by committee approach. If this team doesn’t get a long reliever it’s going to be in trouble this season, this bullpen isn’t good enough or deep enough to go without one.

My fault, everyone. I accept full accountability for this. I jinxed it by commenting on how well the bullpen was doing. Hawkins unraveled about 3 minutes after I posted. Next time, I’m keeping my mouth zipped. :-x

Kennedy was definitely wild tonight, but the home plate umpire was squeezing him a bit, too, especially in the third. The strike zone has been incredibly inconsistent tonight. Still, when you’re constantly falling behind batters 2-0 and 3-1, sooner or later you’re going to get burned. Even with all that wildness, though, the Rays didn’t hit Kennedy very hard. This was just a hiccup. The kid is going to be good.

The past few years Giambi has been kind of a one trick pony, he hit the ball hard to right field. Now he is putting up some good defense and his first hit of the year is the other way. This might be a very good year for the Big G.

I’m listening to the game on the radio, it sounds like a combination of Kennedy not having good command and the ump not giving him any breaks. Oh, he’s out of there. Let’s hope the Yanks start hitting.

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